Movie review: The Adjustment Bureau ****

The Adjustment Bureau ****

Stars: Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Terence Stamp, John Slattery, Anthony Mackie
Director: George Nolfi
Rate: PG-13
Showing: Speciality Cinema week of Friday, March 11 - Daily at 2:30/6:15/9:15pm except Sunday 4:45/7:15pm. For more information about film times, call 292-2135.
Runtime: 107 minutes
Thriller/romance

Matt Damon really is on a roll. After the excellent True Grit, Green Zone and Invictus comes another well-acted thriller, this time about cheating fate.

He plays David Norris, an ambitious politician chasing a seat in the U.S. Senate.

By chance, he meets beautiful British ballet dancer Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt, The Young Victoria) and quickly falls for her — but mysterious men are soon conspiring to keep the pair apart.

David discovers they are the men of the Adjustment Bureau — employed by fate to ensure events unfold to its design.

They use their considerable power to keep the lovers apart, saying they were never meant to meet and their lives and ambitions will be ruined if they stay together.

Against overwhelming odds, David must decide to let her go and accept a predetermined path or risk everything to cheat fate and be with her.

The movie is based on The Adjustment Team, a short story by acclaimed sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick, famous for Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report.

It questions notions of free will, chance and fate but simplifies the source material’s philosophizing.

It’s a bit far-fetched to believe that David is being manipulated, Manchurian Candidate-style, to political success by sinister Matrix-style agents.

They are headed by Thompson (the ever-excellent Terence Stamp), who knows that if David falls in love then the Bureau will not be able to control him or subsequently, the nation.

Essentially, love will conquer all — but and the romanticizing and paranoid conspiracy theories are hard to take seriously.

There is plenty of action as the duo is chased through New York, which is portrayed as a façade, with the Bureau controlling things behind the curtains.

It’s all a little Bourne meets the Truman Show and mixed with The Matrix.

But the acting is good and keeps you watching, even when the plot lets you down. Switch off your brain and enjoy.

Watch if you liked: The Matrix, Memento.